We real cool Book

Hooks is such an interesting writer and this is such an interesting book. In summary you could say that the things hooks finds most objectionable in the world relate to the 'white-supremacist capitalist patriarchy' - a phrase she has more or less made her own. The problem is that we live in a society where all three of these elements of oppression are presented as both inevitable and commonsense. As such, not only is each corner of this triad presented as self-supporting, but those who are clearly disadvantaged by one or other of the corners are often encouraged to seek their solace in one of the other supports to the system of oppression. For black males capitalism is always available in theory as a means to success, while it is patriarchy that is available in practice. As hooks makes clear, real liberation requires being liberated from all three of these systems of oppression and that it is not possible to be liberated from one while being oppressed by either of the others.

This book is a deeply personal account drawing heavily on hooks' life, she is an interesting and powerful academic particularly for the way she does precisely this - illuminating her points from lived experience. But what I found most interesting about this book was the discussion of the differences she sees between Rap and Blues music. For hooks, Blues was a liberating force in Black American society as it allowed a space for Black males in particular to engage with their emotions and to be vulnerable. The patriarchal thinking that appears to offer solace for the oppression of living in a white-supremacist society, such as the United States, has its own strictures and constrains. Interestingly, many of these strictures help reinforce society's paradoxical vision of Black males as castrated, sex-obsessed, violent, emotionally stunted, over-grown children. The very little Rap music I've ever listened to has been strikingly misogynist, obsessed with the possession of status symbols at any cost, violent and angrily anti-intellectual. Bell hooks makes it clear that such music is symptomatic of Black oppression, not a solution to it, it is a kind of false consciousness where 'the best you can hope for', the desires you are encouraged to have, merely reinforce your prison walls.

At one point in this hooks makes the point that when asked what sex and race people would like to come back as in their next life, people overwhelmingly say 'a White male'. People aren't stupid, they can recognise unearned privilege when they see it. And why wouldn't you want the free ride white skin and a penis offer? Few people are silly enough to want to come back as a Black woman, say. On the spectrum of human disadvantage, being coded Black and Pink sits at an extreme end.

Black male bodies are a screen upon which society projects its insecurities and fantasies. Myths of Black males as sex machines, as kinds of animals, of being in possession of natural sporting abilities - all present Black males as bodies without minds. Success is defined as either sporting or musical prowess, while intellectual pursuits are too often considered a mark of shame, particularly for Black males. But, as was made clear by Du Bois so long ago, the path to freedom finds its shortest route through schools. The prison-industrial-complex in the US, something which disproportionately discriminates against Black males, is only encouraged and justified by the values endorsed by Rap music - values that stress hyper masculine and hyper capitalist desires where it doesn't matter how you make it, a Rolex watch, a fast car and an endless string of attractive women on your arm is the very definition of success. Clearly, this was anything but the message of the Blues, where a song is infinitely more likely to be about the pain and loss of being left by a lover than it is to be about fucking bitches in roofless Cadillac.

At the end she quotes the Isis and Osiris myth - where Osiris is hacked to pieces and the parts of his body scattered across the world and where, out of sheer love, Isis travels the world collecting these pieces and then painstakingly putting them back together again. The last paragraph of the book being:

"This glorious myth, the tale of Isis and Osiris, reminds us that no matter how broken, how lost we are, we can be found. Our wounded souls are never beyond repair. Black females and males can use this myth to nurture the memory of sustained connection with one another, of a love that has stood and can stand the test of time and tribulation. We can choose a love that will courageously seek out the wounded soul, find you, and dare to bring you home again, doing what must be done to help put the bits and pieces together again, to make us whole. This is real cool. This is real love."

But it is also up to Black males to stand by Black females, not merely to offer support, but because patriarchy is a symptom of all of our oppression and so overcoming patriarchy is, thereby, a task on all of our paths to liberation. She talks of how many men are learning this lesson and who challenge sexism when they are confronted with it.

So, I finished reading this book yesterday and then last night went to a talk by an author discussing his latest book. The author was Michel Faber. A lot of the talk was harrowing - he lost his partner a couple of years ago to cancer while writing this book. The discussion of both topics merged and mingled and was painful in many ways, in fact, painfully confronting. At the end there was time for people to ask questions. The first from a man and then three women. Michel then said, 'Are there any questions from someone without a womb?' I couldn't really tell you much about what happened after he said this. I wanted to leave, but since he had been so open about his grief I found the implied insult of my walking out before the talk was over impossible to contemplate. Three more questions where asked, all by men (unsurprisingly), none of them referred to his bizarre preference for being questioned by males. I left feeling violated, complicit and angry - I left incredibly unlikely to ever buy or read one of his books again. Those of us with all of the benefits of white male privilege need to be held to account for how we exercise or choose not to exercise that privilege. In remaining silent I condoned what ought to be unforgivable. I can find endless excuses, I've used some of them above, but that brute fact remains.